This semi-famous white-paper from 1999 confronts head-on the issues of censorship just hinted at in other publications (such as here, here, here, and here). There are three essential messages of this paper:(1) New Media is still new and confined largely to the elite. But Internet is proliferation rapidly.
(2) Governments are struggling to exert censorship over new media.
(3) "The Internet holds the promise of allowing Arabs to dip into a vast sea of information that currently lies beyond their grasp" (Alterman xi).
Alterman could be accused of being overly optimistic that the new generation of Arabs, using New Media, will overcome any ills in their society. The internet certainly provided a great source of new information in America and many new tools for overcoming the ills in our society, but it also gave tools to pedophiles. Media is both glorious and fallen as Calvin would say.
Alterman notes the grounds for censorship in the Arab world. It is fascinating enough that I will quote it at length:
"There are generally four grounds for censorship in the Arab world today. The first has to do with the bounds of political debate. Whereas every Arab country has some degree of free debate, in each there are "red lines" that cannot be crossed. These red lines often have to do with Islamist opposition forces...The second and related taboo is criticism of a country's rulers or their families. From Morocco to Iraq, rulers may not be criticized by name in the domestic media (Alterman 46)
A famous example of the second taboo (that often results in censorship) was of the Moroccan leader Hosni Mubarak's sons. After a regional newspaper advertised an upcoming issue in which they would reveal details of the sons' personal corruption, the sons successfully sued the news organization to keep them from printing it. Then to add insult to injury, they sued the paper a second time for false advertising by promising a story they never delivered to the public (Alterman 46).The third taboo has to do with writing of a religious nature that might cause undue dissension in a country. Islam is the majority religion in every country in the Arab world, but there remains disagreement within and between countries regarding what the proper practice of Islam requires. Within the generally acceptable bounds od discussion are debates over the nature of Islamic finance, cultural conflict with Western secularism and the role of women in the family and in the workplace. What are generally barred are discussions that seek to delegitimize Muslim groups or that incite violence against religious minorities. This is often a floating line, and it is most clearly crossed when Islamist partisans start tossing around the concepts of apostasy (ridda) or disbelief (kufr) to describe groups or individuals whose views they oppose. Whereas governments in the region often try to appropriate Islam to legitimize their own rule, they are vigilant in guarding against the possibility that some would use Islam to deligitimize either the government itself or groups in the general population (Alterman 46-47).The third taboo is interesting because it relates so closely to the second. If the leader of your country IS your religious leader (ie. Iran), then what are you doing when you publish something that challenges that leader? Are you challenging politics or religion? In practice, it's often whichever has the worse consequences for the journalist (Doha Debates). Without separation of religion and state, a statement against a corrupt leader can be twisted easily into a statement against Islam.
The forth taboo has to do with social and sexual mores....The guiding principle seems in many ways not so much toban because of the nature of the materials themselves, but rather to ban those materials that are likely to cause (or have caused) offense among domestic clergy (Alterman 47).But Alterman notes that censorship is perhaps a dying art. Because the internet proliferates and as literacy proliferates, people will be using the internet for information. "Censorship over the internet is ...perhaps the easiest to circumvent, becuase many of those who want to circumvent restrictions are more technically savvy than those who want to keep the restrictions in place" (Alterman 47).
Alterman predicts that transnational media is the future of Arab journalism because they can do hard-hitting reporting of multiple countries without having to answer to them. Off-shore media is large area of growth, with reporters on the ground in the Arab world, but supplying information to publications based in England and France, who are exempt from censoring laws (Alterman 73-74).
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